Before I Sleep

by Rachel Lee

  “Carey?”

  His tone was impatient. She recognized it from the days when she had been battling through an endless crisis of conscience, and he had started to get tired of her unending talk about the law, justice, and her job. He'd even called her a one-trick pony. Maybe she was. She was still talking about the same things on the radio.

  “Carey?” This time there was no impatience, but instead genuine concern. She looked into his gray-green eyes but couldn't read them. He'd always had unreadable eyes— when he wanted to. “Did something happen to you? Did somebody threaten you?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No. Sorry. I'm sorry. It's just—you're probably going to laugh at me.”

  “Since when does that bother you?”

  She wanted to tell him she didn't care what he thought about her, but even as she opened her mouth to say so, she realized that wasn't strictly true. “I just… well, I want you to give me a full hearing, okay? Somebody's life could depend on it.”

  He sighed. “Otis.”

  “Yes, Otis!” Her temper was close to snapping, and she had to force herself to remain calm. She was not ordinarily so close to the edge, but the whole idea of a man being executed in part because of things she had done was eating her alive—especially since she had always harbored a belief that he was probably innocent. “You're not going to tell me that you want this man to be executed if he's innocent?”

  “He's not innocent. He was convicted of murder.”

  “And for you it ends there?”

  He nodded. “For me it ends when I make my testimony in court, counselor. It has to end there, whether the suspect is convicted or not. We've been over this a thousand times, Carey. Christ, maybe a million times. It sure felt like it.”

  The reference to the last days of their relationship struck her as almost brutal, but she forced herself to ignore it. “Seamus—”

  “Is that why you called me? To argue about this again? Jesus, Carey, there's nothing left to say that we both haven't said.”

  “But there is something more. Maybe.”

  She had to give him credit. His face didn't shutter, the way it had too many times in the past. He grew still, attentive, listening.

  “The other night on my show I got a call from someone who said that John Otis didn't do it, and that he was going to prove it.”

  “So? Anybody could say that. All it takes is one crackpot.”

  “I know that. I deal with crackpots all the time in this job. And that's all I thought he was. I even poked fun at him a little.”

  He nodded slowly, waiting.

  “Did you hear about the break-in at Tricia Summers's house the night before last?”

  “The Channel Five news anchor? I heard something about it on the news. So?”

  “Ed Rich, our station news anchor, asked me about it yesterday. He wanted to know if I could get any inside information out of one of my friends since the Sheriff's Department isn't saying very much.”

  “Hardly surprising. Summers probably doesn't want to be a news item.”

  “I thought so, too. I mean, maybe she had some sex toys stolen, or some sexy photos. That's what I told Ed, but I agreed to check it out anyway and see if I could find some little thing that would give him a scoop.”

  Seamus sighed. “God, I love how the media work.”

  There wasn't much she could say to that, since at one time she'd felt pretty much the same way. But the remark put her on the defensive. “I wasn't going to give him anything scandalous,” she said. “But it wouldn't hurt to see if there was something he could use.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  She wanted to bean him, but decided it wasn't worth one-to-four for battery. “Anyway, I got in touch with a friend at the State Attorney's Office, and he looked into it for me.”

  “And what lovely, scandalous little detail did you turn up?”

  “It's not scandalous, Seamus. It's frightening. Somebody went to all the trouble to break into her house and circumvent her alarm system to do just one thing: slash a nightgown with a razor blade.”

  “Maybe he got interrupted before he could do anything else. It may be sick, Carey, but it doesn't have anything to do with Otis.”

  “Possible not. But maybe you've forgotten. Tricia Summers was the legal reporter for Channel Five during the Otis trial. She did a live segment from the courthouse every day on the evening news.”

  “I remember. So?”

  “Do you remember how slanted her reports were? Do you remember her standing there after the verdict came in and telling all her viewers that it was a good day for the Tampa Bay area and a triumph for the justice system? The other stations were more matter-of-fact about the verdict, but she was practically cheerleading.”

  “Okay, so she was connected. A lot of other people were connected, too. It doesn't mean anything.”

  “The nightgown the guy slashed was pink silk.”

  “So?”

  Carissa stared at him, her insides rolling as her mind recalled images she would far rather have forgotten. She could still remember the feel of the plastic evidence bag in her hands as she showed the nightgown to the jury. “Maybe you've forgotten. The nightgown Linda Kline was wearing the night she was slashed to death was pink silk.”

  “It was so blood-soaked I…” He trailed off and shook his head. “Coincidence, Carey. I'm sure a lot of women have pink silk nightgowns.”

  “That may be. But Tricia Summers doesn't. The nightgown that was slashed didn't belong to her.”

  Thunder boomed outside, and not even the soundproofing of the booth could entirely muffle the sound. It seemed to echo in Seamus's head as Carey's words sank home. He felt a shift, like an earthquake, inside himself.

  And immediately he started scrambling to put his world back together again. “Anybody could have found out the color of Linda Kline's nightgown. It was in evidence, for Chrissake. It was probably mentioned in the news reports.

  “She nodded. “Eighteen days, Seamus.”

  He didn't have to ask what she meant. He knew about her countdown on the radio. “Slashing a nightgown isn't the same as slashing a person. The color might be coincidental, or it might be deliberate, but even so, that doesn't tie it to the original crime. And the guy who called you might just be some kind of weirdo who wants to capitalize on the Otis execution and get himself in the papers.”

  To his surprise, she just nodded. But those hazel eyes of hers said something else entirely.

  He sighed inwardly and tried once again to remind her of the logic of the Otis case. “Look, you know we considered other perps. And nobody else could have committed the crime.” He started to tick on his fingers.

  “First, you need motive. Otis was the only one with a motive—he had a knock-down, drag-out fight with his foster father the night before the murders. Two, you need opportunity. Nobody else could have gotten into that house without breaking in. It had to be somebody with a key. That left John Otis. And he didn't have an alibi that stood up.”

  “He was in Vero Beach.”

  “Nobody saw him there, from the time he checked into the hotel until the time he checked out. Plenty of time to drive back here and commit a couple of murders. Opportunity, Carey.”

  She nodded woodenly, and his exasperation began to grow again.

  “The case is closed,” he said. “You know that. And no slashed nightgown is going to reopen it.”

  “Probably not.”

  “So what the hell did you call me for?”

  “I don't know,” she admitted finally. For a moment she looked away.

  “You're obsessed.”

  She nodded.

  “It's not healthy. You had a job to do, and you did it. You did what was right.”

  “Did I?”

  “Jesus.” He shook his head and rubbed his chin, and tried to look at anything at all except the woman who faced him across the console. “You've got to get over it.”

  “You're one to talk.”

  He f
elt an impulse to violence so strong that he actually had trouble quelling it. “Don't go there,” he said through his teeth.

  She had the grace to look ashamed. “I'm sorry. I guess we both have our obsessions. But mine is one I can do something about, Seamus. This is bothering me. Seriously bothering me. Something about this slashing is making my hackles rise.”

  “You're just clutching at straws.”

  She sighed. “Okay, I'm clutching at straws. But I thought…” She trailed off.

  Ah, he thought, at last. The real reason for her call. “You thought what?”

  She shrugged one shoulder, looking as if she were hunching for a blow. “I thought maybe you could check it out and see if there are any other similarities to the Kline killings.”

  “It's out of my jurisdiction.”

  “You know people in the Sheriff's Department. You could” find out more than I can. I still have friends in the prosecutor's office but …” She shook her head. “You could, find out a lot faster than I could. And time is of the essence.”

  “If there are any similarities, someone would—”

  She ruthlessly interrupted. “If there are any similarities, no one's going to be looking for them, and you know that as well as I do,” she said sharply. “The Kline case is closed, and John Otis is on death row. Nobody's going to be looking, and cops are as shortsighted as anyone when it comes to things like that. It'll never occur to any of them to see what might be right under their noses!”

  He hated to admit she was right. “I've got a full caseload—”

  “Damn your caseload! Why don't you just for once consider that instead of catching a killer, this time you might be able to prevent a killing!”

  “Not on the basis of a slashed nightgown.”

  She apparently had no answer for that. He rose from the stool and buttoned his suit coat. The meeting was over. “See you around,” he said, and turned toward the door.

  “Seamus? I'm going to Raiford to interview Otis.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “You really are a glutton for punishment, aren't you.” Then he walked out.

  Carissa sat at the console for a long time, feeling close to tears and close to anger, and unable to settle on one or the other. Talking to Seamus had always been like talking to a brick wall, she thought. His mind-set was so fixed.

  But so was hers, she admitted wearily. So was hers.

  Bill Hayes caught her at the nine o'clock break. She was taking the time to slip out back and smoke a cigarette from the pack she'd bought yesterday. She told herself that if she only smoked a couple a day, she could quit at any time, but the fact was, after an hour of talking with callers about Otis, the death penalty, and abused children, she would have crawled on her hands and knees for a nicotine fix.

  She was standing out back on the rain-slick pavement, halfway through the cigarette when Bill stepped out to join her. The rain had stopped temporarily, but the cat was nowhere to be seen.

  Bill lit a cigarette and took a couple of drags. “You've got to get off the Otis thing,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Advertisers are getting nervous. They're worried your ratings will fall off if you stick with one subject.”

  She shrugged. “The phones are still ringing like mad, and people have plenty to say about it. I don't force them to talk about it, Bill. I just do my monologue. If they want to discuss something else, they can.”

  “You know the phones don't matter, Carey. You know perfectly well all that matters is how many people are listening, and most of them don't call. You can light up the phone lines with only a handful of listeners.”

  She didn't respond.

  “Work with me, Carey. No advertisers, no show.”

  She sighed and took another puff on her cigarette. Tipping her head back, she looked up at the night sky.

  “Besides,” he said, “you're nationally syndicated. How many folks outside Florida give a shit about Otis?”

  “They care about the death penalty.”

  “Maybe. But do they care enough about it to listen to it being discussed every night for three weeks?”

  She couldn't honestly argue that they did. Tossing away her butt, she pulled another cigarette out of the pack and lit it. So much for just a couple a day.

  “You know,” Bill continued, “I can understand why you care so much about this. But talk radio is entertainment, Carey. You've got to be careful of using it as a soapbox.”

  “Limbaugh uses it as a soapbox.”

  “Wrong. Limbaugh is an entertainer who plays to a conservative audience. His mistake was beginning to believe in his own shtick. He's not as big as he used to be.”

  “There are twenty million ditto-heads.”

  “Maybe. But there aren't thirty million, and there never will be. But even so, he never plays one issue to death day after day. He plays a variety of them. He's smart enough to keep grabbing on to new stories as they come up.”

  “And?”

  Bill tossed his cigarette away and faced her. “You can continue your countdown, but don't make it the only focus of your show. Because if you do, in eighteen days your show is going to be as dead as John William Otis.”

  He went back inside, leaving her to finish her cigarette.

  Seamus got home late, a little after ten. He'd been called out to visit a murder scene that had turned out to be an open-and-shut case of domestic violence. Three neighbors had seen the ex-husband, who was supposedly out of town for a week, drive up and drive away shortly before the victim had come crawling out her front door covered in blood and begging for help.

  Case closed.

  The words seemed to echo in his head, drawing his thoughts back to his meeting with Carey. That woman was bound and determined to find something on which to hang her belief that John Otis was innocent.

  Shaking his head, he stepped through his front door into his living room, and nearly reeled at the overpowering stench of beer. The first thing he saw was his dad, sprawled on the couch, snoring loudly, with a heap of empty beer cans on the floor beside him.

  “God damn it!” he said, and slammed the door.

  Danny Rourke wasn't in a coma. He pushed himself up on his elbow and looked in his son's direction. The nystagmus of Danny's eyes was obvious to Seamus, who'd done plenty of field sobriety tests in his day.

  “I told you I wasn't going to stand for this,” he told his father.

  “I know,” Danny mumbled. “I know.” He pushed himself into a sitting position. His head lolled almost like a rag doll's before he managed to steady it. “I quit, son. I really did.”

  Seamus kicked the beer cans. They rolled a short distance across the carpet. “What's this, then?”

  “I couldn't…” Danny trailed off and tried again. “I got the shakes, son,” he said in slurred tones. “I got ‘em bad.”

  “Christ.” Seamus dropped onto his easy chair and stared at his father, feeling a mixture of hate, anguish, and love. “You need detox.”

  Danny managed an exaggerated nod.

  “Shit.” He couldn't do it for the old man, and the old man couldn't do it for himself. And if his alcoholism was this bad, he really did need professional help. How in the hell was he going to afford it? But did he have any choice?

  “IRS wrote me,” Danny said. He pointed to a crumpled piece of paper on the end table.

  Seamus picked it up and smoothed it out. It had apparently been forwarded from Danny's old address. And it was not the kind of news that was likely to help the old man stay sober. They wanted to know where he was hiding the business equipment that he'd previously taken deductions for.

  “Where's the business equipment, Dad?”

  “Sold it.”

  It was just about what Seamus had figured. He'd probably sold everything that wasn't nailed down in order to pay for his booze. “Do you have any idea how long they've been after you?”

  Danny shook his head.

  “Judging by this, I'd say you've been
ignoring their letters for a long time.”

  “They wanted some money and I didn't have it.”

  “But how long ago was that?”

  “Don't know.”

  Of course not. Danny had been living in an alcoholic haze of forgetfulness for some time. “How'd you buy the beer?”

  “Ten bucks,” Danny said thickly. “I had ten bucks.”

  “Do you have any more?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I'm slamming your butt into detox tomorrow, Dad. Like it or not, you're going to dry out and stay dry. Do you hear me?”

  Danny managed a limp nod.

  “I'll find someone to handle this IRS business for you, but you've got to promise me you're going to stay dry, Dad.”

  “Promise.”

  “Now get to bed and sleep it off.”

  He watched his father stagger down the hallway to his bedroom, and tried not to remember the father he had had as a child. Tried not to remember how he had once believed that Danny Rourke knew everything about everything, and that his father could always keep him safe. Tried not to remember just how much he had once loved that old man.

  What the hell was he going to do about the IRS? At this point, Danny probably needed more than an accountant; he probably needed a lawyer, and lawyers weren't cheap.

  In fact, between a lawyer and detox, Seamus figured he could kiss off all his savings, and probably a good portion of his disposable income for the next five to ten years.

  But what else could he do?

  He might want to hate the old man, but Danny was still his father. He couldn't just throw him out and forget about him.

  But even as he sat there, nursing his anger and resentment, telling himself how much he hated his father for the way he had blighted so many lives, Seamus found himself remembering.

  He remembered thirty years ago when everything had seemed possible. He'd been baseball mad back then, and had dreamed that he was going to grow up to be a major-league pitcher. He'd wanted so bad to go to a spring training game at Al Lang Field. He'd been begging since he got old enough to have his own baseball glove, but there'd never been a good time. Danny had been working himself half to death on his shrimp boat, trying to support his young family, and time off to go to a baseball game just didn't seem possible. Nor did the cost of the tickets, only a few dollars, but a few dollars more than Danny Rourke had had to spare at that time, while he was struggling to pay off his boat and make all the ends meet.